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Dwyane Wade was embarrassed at the effort from himself and his Bulls teammates in a loss to the Hawks on Friday night. The final score was 102-93, which on the surface isn’t terrible but it’s misleading. The Bulls were completely outplayed and at one point found themselves down by 29 points at halftime, which led to Wade taking to twitter after the game to apologize to Bulls fans for the game.
@IamJoeSports
The game was basically over at the end of the first quarter, when the Bulls were already down by 22. This isn’t a team that is built to come back from that much of a deficit.
That performance was AWFUL!!! I apologize to all the Chicago fans and Wade fans.
— DWade (@DwyaneWade) January 21, 2017
Wade was far from the only player who was feeling embarrassed over the loss. “I’ve been, we’ve been tired of this,” Bulls All-Star swingman Jimmy Butler said. “We got to come out better, man. We got to start playing better from the jump. Forty-eight minutes, man. It’s terrible basketball. That’s not the way we’re supposed to play.
“It’s so disappointing because the way we practice isn’t the way that we play in the game. Don’t ask me why — I don’t know. Starting from me going all the way down the line, we’ve got to be better as a whole, as a team. Otherwise, we’re just going to keep getting our asses beat. It’s bad.”
The Bulls did not expect to find themselves sitting at 21-23 this season, currently holding the final playoff spot in the east. When they brought Wade and Rondo in to play with Butler, they have confidence things would go much better. It’s something the team is still trying to figure out.
“I don’t know,” Wade said. “I don’t. But the only thing I can do is focus on trying to consistently bring in that excitement in practice, that focus, let everyone know. And then hopefully consistently have it more in the games. It’s not like we don’t do it — it’s just some nights we don’t, some nights we do. There’s a lot of teams in the NBA that’s in the same situation we’re in. A lot of teams don’t have it. The ones that do have it, they’re very, very good.”